Photos: Martina Orsini / Foiling Week Garda 2016 - Loading & Foil shots & text sent by Charlie Mayer. That S9 foil doesn´t look that small in area compared to the FP one, more when the S9 has two working T foils at any given time. On the weekend I asked a Pro Engineer on AC48s upwind foiling and he remarks area is key for those new L shape foils.
Will be interesting to see how those bigger sized hard Ls respond above 20knots in Bermuda. And how beachcat foilers (Racing & Recreational) adapt AC tech this time around for next gen flying small cats

Meanwhile in the US Charlie & John Tomko will be taking the flying toys to Newport for the Foiling Week US Edition. Mayer's own S9s (2) will be available for testing on his own initiative to show the great little flyer.
After the FW the A-Class North Americans will take place also at Newport, more info at acatnorthameric|ans.com/
Foiling Week Newport will take place September 8-11th, details at foilingweek.com/pages/newport-r-i/

Announce sent by Charlie:
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"Hi everybody!
The trailer containing my S9s will be rumbling into Newport early in the afternoon of September 7th.
We’ll start rigging that afternoon and continue rigging early on September 8th.
If you see us there, please come by and visit.

Restaurant and entertainment advice would be appreciated.
Demos available after assembly, of course. (Six sailors in line so far.)"
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Aug 26, 2016

Aug 25, 2016

Unusual cold rainy winter this year, so not much sailing. The F18s have been racing and training for the Worlds past months, but the 'Panzer tanks' can sail in almost any condition, with the F18 you can go out and charge +25knots and hard chop/waves. With the A for me the plan is always to enjoy , easy going style. I've been out with breeze and waves but equipment care is a concern, more when is not yours...

Past Tuesday I could get a good climate window, along baby sitting helping Mom with our 2 months beautiful girl (and third child). 18° Celsius , rather flat with a nice North Eastern, not super steady but excellent to test only for the second time a winglet upgrade I made to the Exploder A14. (check pics left)

First time out with the new wiglets was some months ago, a similar but colder day. That day when the breeze came up I couldn´t control the bow down attitude (it was crazy a la AC45 Turbo). After the upgrade I maintained previous symmetric section winglets rake as a starting point, but the new assy section from Jakub & Gonzalo is way too efficient and I couldn´t pitch level the A, not even with boards at full back position.

I had to come back and set less rake (outwards transom) to level bow, and use less foil rake too.
The setting stayed there for many weeks, until Tuesday I went out again with mentioned conditions.
12knots maybe of wind, good pressure for moments, it was ideal to test the new settings.

I immediately noticed a leveled and higher flight, without hard dropdowns or sustentation loss from

Pics & links sent by Allessandro Pelliccia - Good iniatitve by the Italian & German associations to join events and gather more boats (50-60 F18s) specially at Circolo Vela Arco, which usually provides great conditions, needless to speak on the scenery, for the F18s and also for the A-Class slring championships. Pics from today, I recognize those bow in the mirror... ALso good to see girls racing in the F18, here in Arg right now, the best crew is youth Eugenia Bosco who is winning races no matter the helm she sails with. More info next week after Arg local event ends.
Garda Racing starts tomorrow.

Video Source: Soft Bank Team Japan - The hard L foils are elevating the game plenty for next Americas Cup at Bermuda. With the lessons learned from SF , AC teams are optimizing foil shape & sections to pursue the holly grail of 100% foiling time.
Little changes make great diff, on Tuesday I could test new Exploder Winglets and it's incredible how affects foiling. More later on this, preparing a post / video.
Nice to see Barker, Draper and Softbank Team pushing the limits, wait for them to have Waterhouse onboard...

Aug 23, 2016

Photo: Swiss Flying Phantom Series swissfpseries.ch/662-bol-dor-lac-de-joux/
Last weeks I received a mail asking if an A was a good Long Distance racing machine. I replies that in my view it has a limited range in calm downwind (no spi) or high winds where an F18 or even the Flying Phantom / Nacra F20s can handle plenty of breeze and waves.

Below report sent by Sandro Caviezel who along Sascha Wallmer participated in the 50e Bol d'OR de la
Vallée de Joux cnvj.ch with really good result for an up & downwind course for the G7 against other double handed foiling or bigger cats. Still the Flying Phantom remains more versatile for a Long Distance, but it seems if you can race in a Lake in Switzerland or any other rather reasonabke wind range then you might have a good chance to put your A-Cat to a test.

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-------------------Long distance race in Switzerland.
"At the start we could not yet fly with the Scheurer G7 A-cats but as the wind picked up a little, we could close the gap to the other flying boats. But amazing how well the A performed in the end.

The race was a pure up and down as the wind was in the direction of the lake. We had to make three rounds (top mark at one end of the lake and bottom mark on the other).
Conditions were light to medium.

At the start there was not enough wind for the A-Class to foil so we lost quite a lot as it was a downwind start and we got passed by all the boats with Spinnaker up....

But just a few minutes after the start we could start foiling, wind strength was changing all the time so hard to give a value but it was around 10 knots with puffs up to 15knots and some lulls with less than 5 knots.

It was impressive how we could keep up with the other boats. Downwind the Flying Phantom were faster (vmg) but upwind we could catch up quite a lot. There were also monohulls racing and so there was one Moth competing. It was the fastest boat on the track. Downwind the difference was not so big but upwind the Moth was just gone....

It's a pity that the monohulls only had to do 2 rounds around the course and the catamarans 3 as in the last round there was less wind (So maybe the Moth would have dropped of the foils from time to time). But in any case it makes no sense to compare the different boats - it was just pure foiling fun and really cool to have all the different boats on the race course."

Aove: video at Arco from 2014 --- Info sent by Alessandro Pellicia / Formula 18 Italia : "From 25th to 28th of August the Italian Nationals and German Open Championships will be held at Arco Alto Garda.

We will have tracking on board in every boat and if possible a start live tracking on Formula 18 italian Youtube channel."

Aug 22, 2016

Sent by Charlie Mayer: "The two S9s from Texas will soon be in Newport for The Foiling Week event, September 8-11.
We'll have a couple of guys from the S9 Foiling Team Texas to show you the boats also Michele's friend Federico to race and help out.

If you would like to get on the list to trial one of the boats, please pm (Charlie Mayer) me at charliepmayer gmail com".
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Sent by Susan Ghent / www.rfbyc.asn.au Video of the event here
-----------Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club in Perth hosted the M32 Interclub Swan River Exhibition Race Series

"The M32 Interclub Swan River Exhibition Race Series drew a huge crowd to Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club to watch the spectacular catamaran racing. Spectators enjoyed the magnificent view from the Club grounds and live video display on large screens around the venue. Perched high on Keane’s Point, Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club is ideally positioned to showcase the exhilarating M32 racing in the natural amphitheatre which is Freshwater Bay. Expert race commentators Ed Fethers and Ben Durham added a professional touch to the day. For those who could not get to the venue, the afternoon streamed live on YouTube. Watch the replay here.

A group initiative between M32 Australia and four sailing clubs in Perth, each of the boats represented a local Club, Royal Freshwater Bay Yacht Club (RFBYC), Royal Perth Yacht Club (RPYC), South of Perth Yacht Club (SoPYC) and Fremantle Sailing Club (FSC). Sailors from a variety of backgrounds both young and old raced alongside each other. It was great to see well known match racing sailors working together with Etchells, dinghy, keelboat and even a few multihull crews. It showed that the M32 is easy for any sailor to make the transition on to the boats and sail them well. David Mills from M32 Australia mentioned, “The M32 is built with simplicity and having only a few control lines is easily powered up making it quite easy to transition from one to two hulls.”

Racing started off slowly with sunshine but a very light south westerly wind. It doesn’t take much to

The Wonder kids from Australia were too close to destroying my prediction by a full Olympic cycle. They were so close for the Gold at Rio, but they should fell highly satisfied on their achievement.
Filling Bundock & Ashby shoes is not an easy task, Australia long time tradition on Multis has been honored plenty and this Silver Medal is only a preview of things to come.
Jason will continue working also now towards Bermuda 2017 with Softbank Team Japan, and I'm sure he will be given AC50 helm position. He should either way.

Congrats also to coach Andrew Landenberger. what a busy past years for Landy, managing as President the greatest change/turmoil the A-Class has endure since its foundation (transition towards foiling) and in parallel being head coach for the Australian Nacra 17 team.

Being a Tornado Olympic silver medalist himself (along Mitch Booth) Landy provided his long time experience & knowledge to an already fast crew, but as we all saw, Olympics need special preparation and mental skills. In the Medal Race Jason & Lisa went for it fully showing they were indeed prepared to assume the great responsibility they were assigned.

To end the Olympic weeks nothing better to view again the interview made by World Sailing to Santi & Ceci after the Gold. Ceci did not have health problems but I can assure you it was tough campaign for her too as I wrote on Tuesday.
You can read hundreds of reports, but watching the story being told by them provides you a real dimension of what they've achieved at Rio.

Aug 16, 2016

Update: Sorry for the delay on the final data, but I just couldn´t believe what happened in Rio.... Forget about twits while racing, that medal race was too much to bare for us , remember about being Argie and suffering? Try to watch the race again, someone will make a movie on Santi Legend Lange's life and this Gold Medal along a focused & tough sailor like Ceci who was key today for their gold.

Full report & regatta sump up next along pics.

Great racing by all specially the top 3 in this MR, Gemma & Jason, Jason & Lisa and Thomas & Tanja, full respect for Billy & Marie as posted in Twitter earlier and sorry for our friends Vitto & Silvia. Only words right now for the French & the Italians is: Just look at Santi history, still much left for you guys.

Aug 15, 2016

All images Sailing Energy / World Sailing - Locals Martine Grael & Kahena Kunze currently in 3rd overall. Next shot: Lange kids, who scored today an impressive 8,2 & 2 series, the last one was head to head with Burling & Tuke, both boats way in front the rest of the fleet.

The ARG crew went from 16th to 5th overall, but a protest by IRL mins ago put a dsq in Race 7.

Nevertheless a great performance under pressure for Yago & Klaus, it is not easy carrying the Lange name around, less in an Olympic regatta, but these two Argentinian youth showed today great guts and drive to put those numbers against a fleet filled with top notch Americas Cup talent , earning a deserved respect on their own sailing skills, as already did in last 49er worlds held in San Isidro.
Once on shore a local major sport network interviewed them while their father washed ARG 49er... that was surely one the greatest scenes & memories these games will leave.

Artemis crews Nathan Outteridge & Iain Jensen were way back in standings before the day started but once more the Australians got back, I recall by now several low starts for them will later recovery to top 3.

In the 49er FX fleet SPA Echegoyen & Betanzos lead after 9 races, two bullets for the day, second place for Maloney & Meech from NZL and third BRA Grael & Kunze.

Laser Medal Races were postponed for tomorrow to lack of wind, with sudden & late 25knots gusts.